Opinion: Theo Maledon's Summer League Shooting Cause for Concern

Oklahoma City Thunder fans didn’t get the full Summer League experience.

Neither first-round pick was able to stay for the duration, as Josh Giddey got hurt in the opening moments of Game 1 and didn’t return, and Tre Mann had to withdraw due to a personal matter after Game 2.

But OKC did have Theo Maledon in Las Vegas, as the sophomore guard looked to continue to develop ahead of his second NBA season.

Unfortunately, after a stellar performance in the Summer League opener against Detroit, Maledon failed to capture the imagination.

Oklahoma City Blue and Thunder Summer League head coach Grant Gibbs said at the start of the say in Vegas that the organization wanted to continue to put the young Frenchman in uncomfortable positions as he tries to be more aggressive, which can explain why he surrendered a respectable 2.6 turnovers per game, but there is no excuse for Maledon’s shooting performance.

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Maledon only shot 33.3 percent from the field, less than his 36.8 percent mark for the Thunder last year, in a Las Vegas environment where he should have been the most polished player on the court.

His numbers were tanked by two performances, a 2-of-11 shooting night and an 0-of-7 outing, which simply can’t happen when battling against a mix of untested draft picks and G League talent.

On the bright side, he did improve on his 3-point percentage from last year during Summer League, which is hopefully for Thunder fans more of an indication of Maledon’s development than his shooting performance from the rest of the field.

Maledon also added 6.4 assists per game, but to fully achieve his Sixth Man status with the Thunder, he’ll need to provide a little bit more of a shooting spark for the Thunder off the bench, as he doesn’t currently have the long-range scoring chops of Ty Jerome, and is less athletic than OKC’s first rounder in Mann who also proved to be a lethal shooter in college.

A five-game sample is by no means reason to hit the panic button on Maledon, but his shooting will be an interesting storyline to watch through the preseason and the opening stanzas of the 2021-22 NBA season.

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